12-31-2024 4:51am

No Gifts Please!

Lesley Misko Editor

"Spotlight" Oil by Hilary Swingle

by Jane Stahl

In the beginning: He made me laugh. He sang loudly, passionately—never in tune and usually with words he made up. Playing Scrabble he’d confidently create sentences to convince us that the unusual word he offered was legitimate.

The very first thing I remember about Paul when I met him was his humor. That humor found its way into what I call our “gifting” history. It’s unique.

Our first gifts to one another pre-marriage were the romantic kind, but romance didn’t last. Year #1 he bought me snow tires. Ten years later, his gift to me was a microwave and classes on how to use it. Practical gifts, for sure, Not funny, though.

The humor started the year he went into business, the year our daughter was born, the year we had no income stream. We were living on borrowed money and, with a new business and a new baby, neither of us had money or any free time to shop.

Like minds: That Christmas I ordered two cute inexpensive soap dishes from a catalogue to have something—anything—to wrap. What a surprise on Christmas morning to open two bars of cute decorative soap he’d picked up at the local drug store on his way home on Christmas Eve.

(Forty years later we were still “in sync”: one Christmas morning we surprised each other with replacement toilet seats.)

Art? Several years later—still financially strained, while we hated that our Buick Skylark lost a hubcap, we were loathe to spend the $25 to replace it. But the spirit of gift-giving provided the needed rationale: I gifted him with a hubcap for Christmas. So pleased, he hung it on the wall for about a month as a piece of art.

While buying it at the time was an extravagant and nonessential purchase during the early years of his business, that hubcap became for us what gifting was all about—surprise and fun—an out-of-the box conversation piece. And totally appreciated!

Bigger and Better: Another of Paul’s favorite gifts was the enlarged trashcan service I ordered. Being a bit compulsive, he struggled and groaned each week the night before garbage day making sure everything fit neatly into the ordinary-sized trashcan that our trash service provided.

Stressed as he was in running his business, he didn’t need to be stressed over trash, so I had our service enhanced with a super-sized receptacle. Garbage night found Paul smiling! “Merry Christmas, honey!”

They did what? On his 30th birthday, I invited his work friends to a party in our home. I was pregnant that year. They brought a stripper to the party as his gift. I don’t recall inviting any of them ever again!

Caught begging: On our 10th anniversary he brought me flowers, perfume, and candy, hoping I’d return to work (and a paycheck) after my maternity leave ended.

My turn: After he sold his business and took a two-year sabbatical from working, I gave him a potted plant, deodorant, and a Snickers bar for our 25th anniversary hoping he’d opt to rejoin the work force!

Win-win: One Mother’s Day I presented him with a card that had a lovely message that expressed how I hoped he felt about me as the mother of his children. I included a present that I wanted him to give to me and wrapped it. The night before Mother’s Day, I asked him to sign the card—which he happily did along with a smile and a “thank you” for saving him the time and effort shopping for me.

Tools: One Christmas I gifted him with a dozen nail clippers that he could strategically place around the house to have one always handy. It’s time for another set: he has no idea where they are.

50 at 50: On his 50th birthday, I gave him 50 bars of soap, 50 rolls of toilet paper, 50 paper towels, among 50 other things he found practical and valuable. Clams and raisin drop cookies were included in the 50’s collection!

60--Friends with benefits: On his 60th birthday, I bought and wrapped 60 items of all sorts of things he loved—mostly Clorox cleaning products—and had them available for his friends to give him throughout his birthday week at the local “greasy spoon” that he visited each morning for coffee or breakfast. Photos with those friends presenting him with the gifts were part of the celebration along with a photo album I then created to memorialize the birthday! He hated all the attention and made me promise never to do that again!

For the gambler: A few Christmases ago I rounded up all the turkey wishbones we’d saved over the years and wrapped a dollar bill around one of the “legs,” suggesting that he invite friends to “make a wish” and whoever got the larger part of the bone won the $1. (Paul’s a “regular” at our local casino; I figured he’d enjoy the the “rush” of the gamble.)

For Fashion’s Sake: Another Christmas I surprised him with a handsome wool overcoat so that he wouldn’t need to wear his ugly, but warm, down coat to formal affairs. He soon figured out that his gift was really a gift to me: a few weeks before, I’d purchased my own formal winter coat and boots. I wanted us to look good—together!

“Nice Presentation, Honey”: One year he’d admired a sport coat at our local men’s store but deemed the item too expensive. “Not spending that kind of money on me!” he’d declared. Of course, I returned to the store without him and bought it. But it was the presentation that became the fun part.

The presentation happened while we were getting ready for a church service on Christmas Eve. Realizing his own sport coat was looking shabby, he asked our son if he could borrow his sport coat for the service. With a wink, I directed Jeff to where I’d stored the new coat that I’d bought to give to Paul the following morning. Paul, thinking it was Jeff’s coat when he opened the zippered protective covering, enjoyed the surprise I’d created when he recognized what was now his new coat: “Nice presentation, honey,” he said—quoting a line from a TV commercial that was running regularly that year.

By his 70th birthday, I gave him exactly what he wanted: nothing!

Treasure Hunt: This past Christmas I found items of cookware, plates, and drinking glasses he’d been wanting to replace. Some items were purchased 40 years ago and, despite his shopping and mine, replacements were nowhere to be found.

Undeterred, I hunted on e-bay and located the exact pieces. I also bought a replacement for a pair of shoes he purchased recently but hadn’t been enjoying. Because he refuses to own more than one pair of shoes at a time, I made the purchase for him and ordered his preferred style.

But, again, the presentation of these gifts was part of the fun. Knowing how he hates receiving gifts, I told the kids that this year their dad was the focus of my gifting. He had the most gifts to open, but they would have the pleasure of opening them for him. He enjoyed watching them; I enjoyed his surprise and delight that I’d found the exact items he’d been wanting.

And—to top off my pleasure--with one gift left to open, he said, “Now if only you’d been able to find those plates I like.” Yup, the last gift was those exact plates. I’ll remember his smile, one that’s increasingly hard to come by in recent years—especially at any gifting occasion, for a long, long time.

The Ultimate—for me: Finally, my favorite: I’ve had a great time over the years finding gifts that surprise and fill a desire or need or provide a fun and funny presentation opportunity. But shopping of any kind is work for Paul. He decided to quit shopping one Christmas Eve when he went shopping for gifts for us and came home with a new leather jacket for himself --something that he always wanted.

Today Paul does his shopping for all of us in 15 minutes at the local bank for gifts of cold cash, but years ago he gave me something I always wanted: an in-ground pool in my backyard.

The Ultimate—for him: My gift to him that Christmas was a box of over 50 Christmas bows with a note saying that anytime he felt he should be finding a gift for me—for Christmas or birthday, Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day, he need only throw a bow in the pool to remind me that he’d already given me my gift of a lifetime. I think that colorful box of bows has been a joy for both of us forever!

"No Gifts Please" was previously published in Studio B Art Gallery's 2021 anthology of poetry and prose titled My Favorite Things: Beauties Are Joys Forever.